PREORDER A COPY:
In a small town where silence feels safer than truth, two teen boys share a friendship charged with a magnetic attraction neither knows how to name. As shame and age shape who they are becoming, their bond asks an unspoken question: is it strong enough, or will their growing differences pull them apart forever?
Mark and Brett have been inseparable since they were five, running wildly along the meandering creek that cuts through their neighborhood in the Pennsylvania countryside. Their friendship is riddled with intense closeness and complication, a dynamic that is confusing to Mark and exhilarating to the seemingly more sure-of-himself Brett.
Together, they spend their high school years dealing with persistent bullies, overbearing siblings, and parents, whose own lives and struggles remain a mystery until the boys are old enough to understand them.
As teenagers, Mark struggles with his attraction to other boys, while Brett thrives in his heterosexuality, or so he claims. As high school nears its end, a reckoning bubbles to the surface—one that forces the boys to confront their true feelings for one another, or go their separate ways and leave the creek and the wooded pathways they know so well behind.
Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers, Penguin Random House
352 pages | Reading Age: 14+ | Publication Date: April 13, 2027
Alexander M. Rigby is a New York Times bestselling editor at DK, an imprint of Penguin Random House. He has visited every national park in the United States and is the author of The Nature of Our National Parks. Alexander holds an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his husband. Meet Me at the Creek is his debut novel.
Advance Praise for Meet Me at the Creek
"Alexander Rigby's Meet Me at the Creek made me laugh, cry, and wince in recognition with its masterful evocation of the awkward ache of adolescent self-discovery. The love story at its heart is beautifully rendered with sensitivity and wisdom. I didn't want this book to end. A stunning debut novel!" —Aaron Hamburger, author of Hotel Cuba and The Shiva Bandit
"Alexander Rigby's debut novel left me with all the feels. Meet Me at the Creek is a beautiful story that dances on that delicate line between dear friendships and first loves. Mark, Brett, and their journeys will stick with me for a very long time." —Robbie Couch, New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow
"A heart-swell of a novel that gorgeously surveys what becoming looks like. Rarely have I read adolescence captured so perfectly, so painfully, so beautifully. This is the kind of book I wish I had as a young man." —August Thompson, author of Anyone’s Ghost
“Warm but tough, Meet Me At the Creek is fantastic. I’ve rarely felt the shiver of recognition so intensely when reading about childhood and young adulthood, the first sparks of interest, the confusion and thrills of first love. I felt great pride while reading about Mark, watching him stumble and get up again, as he made his way over the rough terrain of the woods, on the other side of which is his future. Alexander Rigby has written a true and gripping debut.” —Richard Mirabella, Author of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest
“A nostalgic and heartfelt coming-of-age debut about friendship, identity, and the courage of growing into who you are. Meet Me at the Creek is a lovely exploration of all the ways we find ourselves…and each other…along the way.” —Chip Pons, USA Today Bestselling author of Dearly Departed